12/16/12

It is starting to look a lot like Christmas. Even though the weather today was cold and gloomy, my house felt warm and cheerful. I spent the day working on some Christmas presents and enjoying the sight of these beautiful poinsettias my sister got me. How was your weekend?

Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by and participated on the giveaway. I hope you had lots of fun during the blog hop. Thank you to my followers for reading my blog and to all my new followers welcome. Please keep in touch I'm planning more giveaways for the next year.
The true random generator has spoken and the winner of this giveaway #307 RoseMary. I just sent you an e-mail please check your inbox.

12/9/12

Welcome to my stop on the Quilting Gallery Blog Hop Party. Thank you for stopping by. I hope you stay a while and look around. My name is Martha; I love cooking, baking, gardening and less than a year ago I discovered quilting. And I love it! I tend to collect books and just recently got a copy of Susan Beal's Modern Log Cabin Quilting. I love it so much that I went and got an additional copy to giveaway to one lucky winner.

Here is what you need to do to enter:

-Leave me a comment on this post.
*If you are a non-reply blogger, or you are not sure, please include your e-mail address on you comment so I can reach you in case you are the winner*-If you are a follower you get a second (bonus) entry. Just leave me a comment letting me know your are a follower.

The giveaway stays open until Saturday December 15, then I will chose a winner at random and announce it on Sunday December 16. I'm happy to ship internationally so everyone can participate.

Thank you so much for stopping by. Please check out all the bloggers participating on this amazing party. I'm sure there will be lots of goodies.

Good luck!

*Giveaway is now closed*

12/4/12

This past weekend I tried paper piecing for the first time. Ever since I started sewing I had been intrigued by paper piecing. I admire so much the beautiful and intricate designs that people are able to create using the method, but I had been so intimidated to try it..; Well this Sunday it all changed. Diane @ From Blank Pages was so kind to send me a pattern she designed to test. The pattern is called Illusion. I couldn't be more surprised at how easy it all came together to create this beautiful block. I think Diane is a very talented pattern designer. The instructions on the pattern were so clear and easy to understand and it even came with instructions and templates on how to cut the fabric including seam allowance! I thought that was perfect, specially for a newbie like me. Of course, I couldn't had done it without first reading Diane's Paper Piecing Tutorial.
Now the question is: what to do with my beautiful block? Any suggestions.

12/2/12

You might remember the block in the center of the pillow. I made the star block for my stop on the Traveling Pic-Stitch Blog Hop and after doing the machine quilting the quilted block sat at the bottom of my WIP's basket sad and forgotten for almost a month. I didn't want it to be sad anymore, so this weekend I decided to finally finish my pillow. I really like the way it turned out and how in such as small project I was able to practice different techniques:

-I made the Star block using the English Paper Piecing method:

-The Star block is both machine and hand applique to the background fabric

-I machine quilted the background fabric following the star pattern of the center block and hand quilted it using DMC embroidery thread to add more interest to the design.

It has been raining for the past four days and finally yesterday we had a break from the rain and the sun shined for a little bit. I went out to the garden and took some pictures of the trees still covered with rain drops. Everything looked so fresh and full of life. Our lemon trees are thriving and laden with fruit. We also have a small mandarin tree and this year is finally yielding some fruit. I'm so excited, I love mandarins. They remind me of Christmas and every time I eat one it brings back so many childhood memories...

Today is supposed to rain all day. so we planning a lazy Sunday at home. How is the weather like right now where you live?

12/1/12

My table was in need for a new table runner. So last week I got to work and finished this one. And finally today I had time to take some pictures of it to share with you. I love its simplicity. The quilting is just straight line quilting spaced about 1/2 inch apart (I have been wanting to do that for quite some time). I'm going to enjoy it for a few more days and then I'm going to switch it for a Christmas runner I started to work on today. I can't not believe it is December already and I have not started to decorate for Christmas. How about you, have you started decorating for the Holidays?